


The Root of All Suffering

by loki_silvertongue (TheOriginalSilvertongue)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Character Insight, Drabble, Gen, Gentleness, Love, MSL, Rambling, loki is half a buddhist, reawakening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 07:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16113416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOriginalSilvertongue/pseuds/loki_silvertongue
Summary: Loki has some odd measurements for love.





	The Root of All Suffering

Loki measured love in terms of suffering. He didn’t have flowery words of adoration or long-winded poetic waxings about virtue or beauty. No flattery graced his lexicon for the emotion he considered the most destructive of all. The fullness of love’s cup could be quantified in drops of blood shed, in the tears which filled it. Love could have a rule placed against it to measure the height of its pain, the volume of its wails, or the magnitude of its shaking, but the gentler measures of such feelings eluded Loki even though the feelings themselves did not.

It wasn’t that Loki could not be gentle; he could. He’d raised an orphaned wolf pup by hand, slept with it in his bed as a boy. His hawks, his hounds, his horses—they all knew a gentle Prince of Asgard, one with soft steps and a calm voice. He’d always adored his kennels, mews, and stables with a simplicity of emotion he could not share otherwise, save with his mother, Frigga. And he’d managed to complicate even that. 

Time and experience had taught Loki that love was not gentle. Anything that could seize upon your heart and squeeze it like a ripe fruit before ripping it out of your chest could hardly be described as tender. And so, he fashioned his measure of it in its likeness. Love was described by what one was willing to endure for it. The Midgardians had a philosophy that aligned with his beliefs in this. The ones who called themselves Zen Buddhists taught of four noble truths, the second of which summed up Loki’s own conclusion neatly: attachment is the root of all suffering. 

Love was attachment, but it was one for which Loki was willing to suffer. No matter how he measured it, his nature in that did not change. Not only did he crave love, he had felt for many years that it was due to him, that he deserved it and had been wrongfully denied it. This was a sure recipe to replace the honeyed sweetness of love with bitterness. Only in light of recent events had Loki come to re-evaluate his tasting of love and found it to be more palatable. 

The old craving started again, as sure as the ache of an old wound. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead in his hands, desire beating a tattoo alongside his faulty heart once more.

[  
Loki Silvertongue](http://www.roleplaylives.net/LokiSilvertongue/info/)

**Author's Note:**

> Are the images with the pieces annoying? I'm not sure because I don't see a lot of other people doing it, but I guess that doesn't mean it's wrong, just uncommon. What do you think?


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